Secrecy and Security News

October 2010

Intelligence spending at record $80.1 billion overall by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, October 29. "The government announced Thursday that it had spent $80.1 billion on intelligence activities over the past 12 months, disclosing for the first time not only the amount spent by civilian intelligence agencies but also by the military."

Total US intelligence bill tops $80 billion by Kimberly Dozier, Associated Press, October 28. "The annual cost of U.S. intelligence is public for the first time: just over $80 billion for 2010. Figures released by the government Thursday show $27 billion goes to military intelligence and $53.1 billion covers the CIA and some of the other 16 intelligence agencies."

Al Iraqiah Bloc Statement on Wikileaks Documents, news release, October 27. "Whilst Al Iraqiah condemns these crimes and those legally responsible, it promises the Iraqi people that it will seriously deal with these accusations in a legal, political and humanitarian perspective, to hold to account all those involved in crimes against the Iraqi people and to do justice to the direct victims of these crimes."

In Information Age, Leaks Are Here To Stay by Tom Gjelten, NPR All Things Considered, October 26. "The disclosure of secret intelligence files is in many ways a phenomenon of the information age, and national security officials in the U.S. and other countries need to prepare for the consequences, WikiLeaks or no WikiLeaks."

Clarifying GAO's role in intelligence oversight by Walter Pincus, Washington Post, October 26. "When Congress wants to investigate the intelligence community's core issues, such as evaluating its sources and methods or looking into the origins of a National Intelligence Estimate, the work should be directed by the House or Senate intelligence panels and not the Government Accountability Office."

WikiLeaks renews question of secrecy by Shaun Tandon, Agence-France Presse, October 25. "When WikiLeaks readied the largest-ever release of secret war files, US officials warned the whistleblower site it was irresponsible. After the 400,000 documents came out, the Pentagon said they revealed little new. And so, some experts ask, why were the documents classified as secret in the first place?"

Digital-Rights Group Honors Transparency Activist by Dana Wollman, Associated Press, October 20. "A plaintiff in a 1997 lawsuit that forced the Central Intelligence Agency to declassify and publish the intelligence budget for the first time in 50 years is among four winners of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 2010 Pioneer Awards."

CIA sues ex-agent for book's breach of 'secrecy' by Bill Gertz, Washington Times, October 19. "The CIA has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against a former deep-cover agent who published a book critical of the agency without allowing CIA censors to remove large portions of the manuscript before publication."

Gates: Limited damage from leak of Afghan war logs by Robert Burns, Associated Press, October 16. "No U.S. intelligence sources or practices were compromised by the posting of secret Afghan war logs by the WikiLeaks website, the Pentagon has concluded, but the military thinks the leaks could still cause significant damage to U.S. security interests."

US Government Monitoring Social Networking Sites by Sharon Weinberger, AOL News, October 15. "The Department of Homeland Security has been mining online social networking sites to detect citizenship fraud, according to government documents released by a nonprofit civil liberties group."

Intelligence Science Board Disbanded by Eugenie Samuel Reich, Nature Great Beyond blog, October 15. "The Intelligence Science Board (ISB), an advisory panel established to ensure independent scientific advice to the US Director of National intelligence (DNI), is being abolished. The abolition raises concerns about a possible loss of independent advice to government on topics ranging from nuclear physics to forensics to the psychology involved in interrogation practices."

Transparency: Obama’s Mixed Scorecard by Shaun Waterman, International Relations and Security Network, October 13. "An interim report from the official US investigation into the BP oil spill found that the Obama administration either incompetently or deliberately underestimated the size of the spill in the critical early days of the crisis – yet another example of how Obama has fallen short of implementing his ambitious transparency agenda amidst the realities of trenchant government bureaucracy."

In Gitmo Opinion, Two Versions of Reality by Dafna Linzer, ProPublica, October 8. "The creation of the additional opinion stemmed from a mishap inside the Justice Department: Kennedy's first opinion was accidentally cleared for public release before government agencies had blacked out all the classified information it cited."

Plumbing 101 by Al Kamen, Washington Post, October 6. "The Army issued a directive Monday on how personnel should report on any indications of 'espionage, international terrorism, sabotage, subversion' or, of course, 'leaks to the media'."

Army updates espionage rule book after WikiLeaks by Anne Flaherty, Associated Press, October 5. "The Army has updated its 17-year-old rule book on espionage to specifically require that troops alert authorities if they suspect classified leaks to the media."

Pentagon burns book and makes it a best-seller by Michael Calderone, Yahoo News Upshot, October 1. "The Pentagon has only helped build buzz around 'Operation Dark Heart,' a firsthand account of special operations in Afghanistan, by burning 9,500 copies -- nearly all the first run."